Mahabharatham : ( 08/06/2013. )

======================================================================== ======================================================================== 25/12/2019. Chapter 2- Challenges of the Spiritual Seeker - 2. ======================================================================== 2.2.1 "God helps us, it is true, but He helps us in His own way—not in the way we would expect Him to work". There is a logic of His own, which is not always expressed in terms of human logic. Sri Krishna was there, alive, even when the Pandavas were tortured, almost, in the forest, but we do not hear much about his movements during this period of twelve years. There was, however, a mention of his casual visit to the Pandavas, where he expresses in a few words his wrath, his intense anger against what had happened. “Well, I am sorry that I was not present. I would not have allowed this to have happened if I had been present.” That was all he could say, and that was all he did sa

======================================================================== ======================================================================== 15/12/2019. Chapter 2: Challenges of the Spiritual Seeker -1. ======================================================================== The power of sadhana does not gain adequate confidence until divine powers collaborate with it, and God Himself seems to be at the back of the seeker of God. We have been noting a great epic symbol in the Mahabharata, wherein we are given the narration of the adventure of the spirit in its struggle for ultimate freedom. The wilderness of the forest life that the Pandavas had to undergo is a great lesson to the spiritual seeker. No one can escape the ups and downs of life, the vicissitudes of time through which the ancient sages and saints have passed; everyone seems to have the duty to tread the same path. We have to walk the same path, and the path is laid before us with all its intricacies, with

======================================================================= -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17/11/2019 Chapter 1: The Plight of the Pandavas :- 8. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Goodness does not always succeed in the earlier stages. Truth triumphs not always. In the Ramayana, Ravana appears at times to be more glorious than Rama. Valmiki describes eloquently the significance of Ravana, and many a time one could almost imagine that Ravana was Valmiki’s favourite. It looks as if Valmiki was writing from the side of Ravana. The idea behind it is that the glory of the world sometimes can obliterate the sprinkling of the fire of the spirit inside in the early stages of sadhana. It is not true that the Absolute will manifest itself in us at once, though the little spark in us is a spark

======================================================================= ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 08/10/2019 Chapter 1: The Plight of the Pandavas :- 7. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The external forces, the objective forces, are the Kauravas. The forces that are subjective may be likened to the Pandavas. So the Mahabharata is a war between the subject and the object. Now, what this object is, is also very difficult to explain. It may be a pencil; it may be a wristwatch; it may be one single item in this world that we may call an object. It may be one human being who may be in the position of an object. It may be a whole family, it may be an entire community, and it may be the whole human set-up, the entire mankind or the whole physical universe—it is an object in front of us. The irreconcilab

======================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22/09/2019 Chapter 1: The Plight of the Pandavas :- 6. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Uttarkashi you cannot get your stomach filled—you have to come back to Rishikesh with a hungry stomach. You say, “Thank God, goodbye to Uttarkashi.” You come back. People have tried; they cannot live there, because human nature is a very complex structure. You cannot simply tabulate it into pigeon holes. It is an ununderstandable, impossible organism, and cannot be easily handled. You cannot stay either in Uttarkashi or in any other. Either place would be a failure due to the miraculous dissidence that is within us, as miraculous as we ourselves are, because it has an element of the mystery of the cosmos.

20/06/2019 Chapter 1: The Plight of the Pandavas :- 5. The Pandavas and the Kauravas are especially interesting today in pinpointing the subject of the conflict of the spiritual seeker. The Pandavas and the Kauravas are inside us, yes, as well as outside. The sadhaka begins to feel the presence of these twofold forces as he slowly begins to grow in the outlook of his life. There is a feeling of division of personality, as mostly psychologists call it, split personality. We have something inside us and something outside us. We cannot reconcile between these two aspects of our outlook. There is an impulse from within us which contradicts the regulations of life and the rules of society in the atmosphere in which we live, but there is a great significance far deeper in this interesting phenomenon. The opposition is between the individual and reality, as psychoanalysts usually call it. Psychoanalysis has a doctrine which always makes out that psychic tension or psychotic c

15/05/2019 Chapter 1: The Plight of the Pandavas :- 4. The psychological rift occurs when the realities of life begin to sprout forth into minor tendrils and begin to lean towards the daylight of practical experience. The psychic components of the individual are descendents of a common ancestor, as the Pandavas and the Kauravas were descendants of Kuru, the great hero of ancient times. Yes, it is true—what we call the positive and the negative are not two forces, really speaking; they are two facets or diverse movements of freeing the bound soul. In the Upanishads we read that both the devas and the asuras were born to Prajapati, notwithstanding the fact that the devas and asuras had to fight with each other. It is something like the right hand and the left hand fighting with each other, though they belong to the same common organism or being. There is a similar parentage of the deva and the asura sampat. The devas and the asuras are the Pandavas and the Kauravas, in the languag

27/04/2019 Chapter 1: The Plight of the Pandavas :- 3. Sama, dana, bheda and danda were the political methodologies prescribed by the scriptures. All the four were to be contemplated. The first was sama: political conciliation, humane; dana: a political sacrifice; bheda: a threat that something unwanted may happen if proper steps are not taken to bring about a conciliation; and danda: if everything fails, there is a fight. Finally it was decided by the well-wishers of the Pandavas that the three earlier methods could not succeed, though they attempted their best in the pursuance of these policies. War took place, and details of the war are given in the Bhishmaparva, the Dronaparva, and the Karnaparva of the Mahabharata, ending with the Shantiparva where, by mysterious maneuvers and divine interventions of various types, the war was won on the side of the Pandavas. The chief of the Pandavas, Yudhishthira, was crowned king. The search for truth by seekers on the spiritual path i

30/03/2019 Chapter 1: The Plight of the Pandavas :- 2. The Pandavas were few in number and they had little help from the royal family, on account of a peculiar circumstance that prevailed in the royal residence. The Kauravas were born of a blind old man called Dhritarashtra, and he was virtually the king, being the eldest. And at the same time, because of his blindness, he was only a titularly head, all the powers actually being vested with the eldest of the Kauravas, known as Duryodhana. So there was a tremendous advantage of political power on the side of the Kauravas, headed by Duryodhana as king, and the Pandavas were helpless in every respect of the term. They did not get any patronage from the elderly king, the blind Dhritarashtra, who had naturally the expected affection towards his own children, the Kauravas. The story goes that there was a deep enmity between the two groups, the Pandavas being harassed every moment, wherever they went, until it came to a point where t

28/02/2019 Preface :- Rare is the opportunity for a spiritual seeker to hear words of wisdom spoken by a great sage. Speakers may be many, but true sages are few. His Holiness Sri Swami Krishnanandaji Maharaj is a learned and wise saint of the very highest order of attainment, and he is a person who has the marvelous gift to impart his wisdom to others in a clear and precise way. While his language can at times be highly philosophical in nature, the clarity and essential simplicity of his message nevertheless shines through. To say that Swami Krishnananda is a lover of the Mahabrahata and the Bhagavadgita would be a tremendous understatement. The Bhagavadgita is a presence that fills his very being and is with him every step of the way. Swamiji spoke many times on its import and messageand gave others the inspiration and understanding to delve into this great gospel of Sri Krishna. The residents and visitors to the Sivananda Ashram in Rishikesh had many opportunities to hea

07/02/2019 The Role of Lord Sri Krishna in the Mahabharatam - 15. Swami Krishnananda (Spoken on Sri Krishna Janmashtami in 1972) . Arjuna was saved from many calamities. There are many other incidents which cannot be described in a short compass. Then in the Karna Parva, Sri Krishna pressed the chariot, making it sink down a few inches into the earth so that the arrow of Karna passed over the head of Arjuna, taking his crown but missing his head. Then, when all the war was over and everyone had finished his work, Sri Krishna said to Arjuna, “By providence, your work is done. Now you get down from the chariot first.” Generally the chariot driver gets down first. He does not tell the passenger to get down first. But here the chariot driver said, “You get down first.” Arjuna could not understand what the matter was. He got down. Then Sri Krishna got down from the chariot. When he got down, the whole chariot, together with the horses, burst into flames and was reduced to ashes.

06/01/2019 The Role of Lord Sri Krishna in the Mahabharatam - 14. Swami Krishnananda (Spoken on Sri Krishna Janmashtami in 1972) Arjuna said, “You said you will not take part in the war. Now why are you interfering with me? I would have done something myself. I could have broken it into pieces. Why did you interfere?” Sri Krishna said, “You do not know what it was. It was Vaishnav Astra, and nobody can stand before it. You would have died just now. It was given to Bhagadatta through Narakasura once upon a time, from a divine source. It has come from Me only, so I have taken it back. Otherwise, you would not have been left alive just now,” he said. “All right, whatever you say. Now let the war continue.” Then we have a portion of the Drona Parva called the Jayadrathavata, a very beautiful section. Jayadratha killed Abhimanyu through the help of many others who joined together to kill him, but he was responsible for the death of Abhimanyu the boy because he blocked the